Congress May Defund NSA Spying

Most important bill this week: DoD Approps. We can defund #NSA's unconstitutional spying on Americans--if House leaders allow amendments.
— Justin Amash (@repjustinamash) July 15, 2013

I'm sorry to admit that I have never heard of Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan. A little research reveals that he may run for the senate. Let's hope he does. At present he is on his way to forcing the first legislative showdown over the National Security Agency’s controversial policy of collecting the phone logs of every American.

The venue for the fight is an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that would ban the NSA from collecting information from people who are not under investigation.
GOP leadership keeps stalling, showing the push is putting Speaker John Boehner in a bind. The House Rules Committee, which will decide whether the amendment gets a vote on the floor, delayed its proceedings yesterday for the second time this week. The underlying bill, the Department of Defense Appropriations bill, has also been expected on the floor for the past several weeks but keeps getting pushed back.
The catch is, if the Rules Committee doesn't allow a vote on the amendment, Amash and a coalition of Republicans and Democrats probably have the votes to bring the whole bill down. To do so, they could vote against the “rule,” which governs debate for the bill. Those are typically party-line votes, so only a few Republicans would need to join the Democrats to defeat it.